Air
by Hans the bold
Summary: Chandler Hampton visits his father.
1. One

One of the things I have maintained about 7th Heaven since I first saw it is that the show has the potential to be really good. This may come as a surprise to those of you who have heard me criticize it, because many of my criticisms have been harsh indeed, but this is nonetheless true. Indeed, this opinion has inspired much of my fanfiction; there are plenty of shows out there that I see no potential in whatsoever, and I've never considered even for a moment writing fanfiction about them.  
  
That being said, 7th Heaven is exasperating because the writers of the show so often fail to capitalize on dramatic opportunities that the show presents. As a case in point I present the episode "Smoking", upon which the story here is based. This is not an alternate reading of the episode, mind you, but is rather what I think the writers should have recognized as being worth writing about, rather than an anti-smoking message that was so melodramatic that it failed to be convincing.  
  
As always, characters who appear on the show are the property of the WB and other Hollywood big shots, while other characters are my own. The story itself is (c) 2003 by Hans the bold.  
  
Dedication for this story must go out to all the posters on the 7th Heaven boards at Television Without Pity (http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/), whose posts and e-mails following a bit of personal misfortune brought me back to watching 7th Heaven, and more particularly, "Smoking", which I probably would have ignored were it not for their kindness and support.  
  
  
ONE  
* * *  
  
It was when he arrived that he decided he didn't want to go.  
  
This, of course, was just typical; it always seemed to work this way when it came to Dad. He wanted one thing, you wanted another, you did what you were going to do and no matter what you felt like hell for it, because no matter what he wasn't happy about it.  
  
Hell. Should I be saying hell? Wouldn't "heck" be more appropriate for a minister?  
  
No. In this case, there's no other word that fits.  
  
He'd told no one he was coming, and now, as he stepped off the plane and went for his bag Chandler Hampton felt that old, tight anger in his chest. Stupid, this was. Just stupid. Why are you here? Because that idiot Camden gave you a ticket so he could feel better about what an asshole he's been? Because Lou feels sorry for you? Sure, do what they want -- do what everyone else always wants, so they can think you and Dad embraced and hugged and forgave and everything is all right now, all wrapped up neatly like some bad TV drama.  
  
What crap.  
  
Chandler had reached the baggage claim now, and was standing with his hands in his pockets as the first bags came tumbling up of the conveyer belt. He watched as the woman beside him saw her bag come out and reached for it. She struggled with it a bit and without thinking he reached over to help her. She looked at him with a smile.  
  
"Thank you."  
  
Chandler nodded. His bag would come last. It always did. He wondered sometimes about people whose bags came first. Did it become a story, an event to be recalled over Christmas dinner, the day my suitcase was first at baggage claim? Maybe then the tale would become a part of family tradition: I remember that time when Uncle Fred's bag was the first one out. It was in Buffalo, in the winter of '97 ....  
  
Chandler chuckled in spite of his mood.  
  
And near the end, true to form, there was his suitcase. He picked it up, stood there for a moment.  
  
This was stupid, he thought again. A waste of time. Everyone's chasing that happy ending and no one sees that sometimes you just don't get one. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his ticket, looked it over. Open ended, it said. Go whenever you want, come back whenever you want. It's family; we understand.  
  
No you don't. I have no family except Sid. Even when he was totally screwed up Sid was always honest with me. He was always my brother. Mom was ....  
  
To hell with it.  
  
Chandler took his bag and caught the escalator back up to the ticket counter.  
  
Come back whenever you want.  
  
All right then. I will.  
  
#  
  
The line at the counter was long and Chandler had to set his bag down after a while and rest his hand, flexing his fingers into and out of a fist. The others in the line were quiet, a few talking amongst themselves, but they pretty much left him alone. It had been this way at airports since 9-11, some more than others, but not like it had been before. Every now and again someone would throw a tantrum because the focus was on security first and service second, but for the most part people appreciated why the security was there and so said nothing.  
  
I guess we all lose our innocence eventually, he thought.  
  
He reached the counter, laid his ticket and ID on the counter. "I'd like the next flight to Glenoak International," he said.  
  
The counter agent was a slightly heavy man whose tie looked just a bit too tight. He glanced at the ticket, nodded, and began to peck at the keyboard in front of him. After a moment he looked up.  
  
"Sorry. Next flight's all booked up. Looks like tomorrow's is too."  
  
Chandler sighed, flexed his fingers into a fist, forced himself to relax them. "Anything you can do?" he asked.  
  
The man shook his head. "Sorry. Your ticket's an open end one. But you still need a reservation for a specific flight." He glanced at the ticket again. "Looks like you just got here. Why the hurry to go back?"  
  
"Never mind." Chandler scooped up his ticket and ID. "Thanks anyway."  
  
"No problem."  
  
It crossed Chandler's mind then that the man probably had him pegged as suspicious, so he moved quickly down to the rental car desks. If the police questioned him word would probably get back to Glenoak and then it would be all over town in a minute, because that's the way Glenoak was.  
  
Fine, then. I'll go see the old son-of-a-bitch. Then when I come home they'll all feel worse for having insisted I go, because it won't have solved anything.  
  
He got his rental car and drove into the city. 


	2. Two

TWO  
* * *  
  
Hotel first. Chandler had thought about home, about staying home where Sid and Mom were, but that would just mean all sorts of other things and he didn't need that. This trip wasn't about them, after all. And Mom never stood up to Dad anyway, just let him be the bastard he was, so what do I owe her?  
  
He got his room, went up and sat down on the bed. It was late afternoon and he hadn't eaten since breakfast, but he didn't feel hungry.  
  
What do I feel?  
  
He thought of Roxanne suddenly, not knowing why. What was it about her, anyway? Attractive, yes, but neurotic as hell. But she had been there, too, when he had gone to her house and just sat. She had been there and she had held him and he had cried for a little while. He had never seen her cry, he realized. She's tough, a tough cop. There were stories about Roxanne, stories that got around Glenoak, about how she liked to be a little rough on the job. He'd heard that she once slammed Robbie Palmer against a wall because he wouldn't ask her out on a date. Tough and a bit mean, Roxanne.  
  
Why am I drawn to her, then?  
  
Chandler sighed. It was like so many things. He didn't know. He was a man of God, and he didn't know anything. Weren't ministers, clergymen, supposed to have some divine insight? Camden sure thinks he knows everything.  
  
God, what an asshole.  
  
He gave you this ticket.  
  
I rest my case.  
  
Maybe I could get Roxanne to slam him up against a wall.  
  
Chandler chuckled. He knew better than that. He was an ass, yes, Camden was, but he was an ass with power. He and Michaels from the police force were close, real close. One call and he could get Roxanne cut from the force; her partner, that jealous idiot Kinkirk, even lived in his house.  
  
Kinkirk. That man was a loose cannon. There in the church, when he had caught Chandler with Lucy, Chandler had honestly thought the man was going to kill him, probably her too. Scary.  
  
Maybe I don't go back, Chandler thought.  
  
No. As bad as it is in Glenoak, it's worse here. And dammit ....  
  
Roxanne.  
  
He saw it then.  
  
Dammit.  
  
Why he was falling in love with Roxanne.  
  
#  
  
She was rough, Roxanne was. Despite how she had started to do her hair to make it more feminine, despite how she was wearing more makeup now, was clearly trying to be prettier, softer, he could still see it. She was rough and tough and there was always that part of her that was a little bit dangerous, that you'd better listen to or it would be you who she body slammed.  
  
Who could love that in anyone?  
  
But I do.  
  
Because she isn't Mom.  
  
Mom. Always giving in, always letting Dad do what he wanted. He never even had to raise his voice to her. Just an order, a curt command. And that was safety, too, because when you were young you knew that there was order in the universe, that there was no problem that couldn't be solved by Dad, and it was just so easy and so comfortable to let him decide everything, to never speak up for yourself.  
  
Even when he was so wrong.  
  
What about when Roxanne's wrong?  
  
Roxanne. She's everything. A woman, because you need a woman. Every man needs a woman. But she's more than that, too.  
  
She's Dad, just like Dad. She's a Dad you can marry.  
  
#  
  
He reached over, grabbed the phone, dialed from memory. One ring, another. Someone picked up.  
  
"Hello?"  
  
"Sid."  
  
"Yeah. Chandler? That you?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
A pause. "What's new?"  
  
"Not much. I'm in town."  
  
Another pause, this one becoming a moment of silence. Finally Sid's voice again. "You going to see Dad?"  
  
"Haven't decided."  
  
"Hope you do, man. He's going fast. Mom's at the hospital now. You just caught me; I was about to head over there myself."  
  
Chandler said nothing, nodded as he remembered that Sid couldn't see him do it. "I'll think about it. How's Mom?"  
  
"It's hard, you know? You know she worships --"  
  
Silence.  
  
"I know," Chandler said then.  
  
"Chandler, you know it was hard for her too. You know she wanted to get out and work, but he never let her."  
  
"I know. Someone needed to kick his ass a long time ago."  
  
"Yeah. I guess God finally did it for us. Where are you?"  
  
"Midtown hotel."  
  
"I'll tell Mom."  
  
"No. Don't tell anyone."  
  
Sid said nothing.  
  
"I mean it, Sid."  
  
"You sure?"  
  
"I'm sure."  
  
"All right. But really, man, come down. There's not much time. I'm glad you're in town. Can we get together? Just you and me? I won't tell Mom anything."  
  
"Sounds good. I'll call you."  
  
"Later, man. I gotta go. Mom's expecting me."  
  
"I understand."  
  
#  
  
Chandler hung up the phone, lay back on the stiff hotel bed. Then his fisted hand slammed hard into the pillow beside him.  
  
Goddammit dammit. 


	3. Three

THREE  
* * *  
  
He went out later, got a quick dinner at a hamburger place just up the street from the hotel. It was hard, hard to keep thinking about all this, about Dad, about Mom, about Sid and about Roxanne. But they were all there, all in there, banging around in his head, and he couldn't get them to go away.  
  
Dad. My way or no way, boy. If you aren't like me, you're nothing. If you don't make first string it's because you're lazy. If your grades slip it's because you're stupid. You're going to work a job this summer, boy, because I did when I was your age, by God, and it made me a man. And you're going to be in the business, and I'm going to work you harder than any of the employees, because hard work is what makes a man, and if my sons aren't men then they're nothing.  
  
Mom. He's your father. You boys heed him. He knows best. You heed him, you hear? He loves you and he wants what's best for you. He knows what's best for all of us. I know you're proud because you got that A in art class, and I'm proud of you too, because you're my wonderful, smart, talented boy. But you heed your father, you hear?  
  
Sid. I'm gonna get out, you know? I'm gonna get out, like I always say. I hate that bastard. I wish he was dead. I do. Just the open road, you know, man? You and me and a pair of Harleys, and the open road and maybe some chicks and some beer and no worries. God, I gotta drop the booze, man. I gotta drop the dope. 'Cause it's killing me, you know. I'm dead all the time inside. I need help, man. You know what it's like to detox in a jail cell? I ain't gonna live like this anymore.  
  
Roxanne. Do you love me, Chandler? You want to date with the intention of marriage; does that mean you love me? Because I think I may love you. I don't know, because I've never felt this way before, but I think I may be falling in love with you and I need to know that whatever it is with your father, that you can still love me despite it.  
  
Do you?  
  
#  
  
The sun came around the thick hotel curtains and awoke him in time. He had left the "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door and now was glad he did. It had been hard to sleep last night and it was late now, almost noon. He lay still for some time, his forearm over his eyes, listening to his own breathing.  
  
Breathing.  
  
Air. Blood is nothing without air. They talk about Christ's blood, but not his air. Am I now breathing the same air he did?  
  
Is Dad?  
  
Lung cancer.  
  
How many times have I wished him dead, and now I'm getting what I wanted?  
  
Thanks, God. Thanks for nothing.  
  
In time Chandler threw back the blankets and rose.  
  
#  
  
The hospital wasn't far away. Maybe ten minutes by car. He parked in a public lot nearby, walked the rest of the way. It was a big building, modern architecture, lined with windows you couldn't quite see into from the ground, like those who were within needed to be sheltered from sight lest they infect those outside. The entrance was large and as Chandler stepped through it he remembered another time, when he had still been in seminary, when Harris had asked him to come along for a visit to a dying woman.  
  
"It's good experience, Hampton. If you're going to do this line of work, you should get used to it."  
  
He had said nothing when they arrived, only watched as Harris ministered to the dying woman, as the two prayed together, and afterward he had been ashamed that he hadn't been able to bring himself to speak to her.  
  
Now he walked in alone.  
  
An admissions desk, a pretty receptionist.  
  
"May I help you?"  
  
"I'm looking for Jack Hampton, please."  
  
She checked her computer. "S-417. That's the south wing, fourth floor."  
  
"Thanks."  
  
He stepped that way, following her directions. He wondered about flowers; were flowers appropriate for a dying old asshole who thinks they're just for girls anyway?  
  
Maybe I should get some for Mom. Just a card for Dad.  
  
Dear Dad. Sorry you're dying. Or maybe not so sorry, because you messed up my life.  
  
Chandler was outside the gift shop, not moving.  
  
A voice intruded.  
  
"Chandler? Chandler Hampton? Is that you?" 


	4. Four

FOUR  
* * *  
  
He turned. The man was older, late fifties or early sixties, balding, graying hair. A worn, wrinkled face.  
  
"I'm sorry," Chandler said. "I don't know ...."  
  
The man chuckled. "Don't expect you would. It's been, what, fifteen years?" He extended his hand. "Paul Yates."  
  
Paul Yates. Chandler remembered now, slowly, bit by bit. Dad's friend. Drinking and fishing buddy. Never saw him much. He took the offered hand. "Nice to see you," he said flatly.  
  
The man's grip was strong. "Here to see your Dad?"  
  
Chandler regarded the man suspiciously. "Maybe."  
  
Paul nodded. "I'm real sorry about this, you know," he said. "I was always sure he would outlive me. Tough as nails."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
Paul watched him for a moment. "Is your mother expecting you? I don't want to keep you."  
  
"No. She doesn't know I'm here. Neither does he."  
  
One eyebrow on the man's tired face went up.  
  
"Really?" Paul paused, looked around. "Tell you what, then. I hate hospitals, you know? I just came down from your dad; he's sleeping right now. How about we go out for something to eat, then you can come back and do whatever it is you want to do?"  
  
#  
  
Chandler didn't know why he agreed, even as he and Paul walked out of the hospital and made their way to a nearby restaurant. But there was something about the older man, something that went past all the defenses Chandler had erected over all these years, and he found himself walking with him.  
  
An old friend, but not my old friend. Dad's friend. He knows the score, knows how it is, or at least what Dad told him. Guess what, Paul? My useless son went and found God! Went and became a preacher boy. So now I've got a dumb-ass druggie boy, and a dumb-ass preacher boy. Waste of damn time, the both of them.  
  
They sat, he and Dad's old friend. They ordered. Chandler watched him.  
  
"It's been a long time," Paul said finally. "I wouldn't have recognized you except for your brother; at first I thought you were him, except for the clothes. Sid wouldn't be caught dead in a suit."  
  
Chandler nodded.  
  
"So," Paul said. "Last I heard, you were in the ministry."  
  
Chandler nodded again. "Still am."  
  
"Really? How's it treating you?"  
  
"All right. I'm in California. Town called Glenoak."  
  
"Got your own church there?"  
  
"I'm an associate pastor."  
  
Paul had ordered a beer, and now sipped at it as he ate. "You know, your dad and I used to go on and on about God. Argued like hell about it."  
  
Chandler raised his hand, rested his chin there, tried to sound like he didn't care.  
  
"Really."  
  
Paul chuckled. "Oh yeah. He thought faith was a damn fool waste of time. 'We get out of life what we put into it,' he used to say. 'Church is for people too lazy to get things by working. They want God to give it to them without them having to earn it.'"  
  
"You think that?" Chandler asked.  
  
"Me?" Paul laughed. "Hell, no. My wife gets me to church every Sunday; she hates it when I cuss, too. Been a Methodist since I was a boy. Can't say I buy all of it, but my wife's smarter than I am, so I figure I should trust her."  
  
"Smarter?"  
  
"A good woman is always smarter. They talk about who wears the pants in a family; I think they should talk about who wears the skirts."  
  
For the first time Chandler chuckled. "Don't tell my dad that," he said without thinking.  
  
Paul smiled. "I have. A lot of times. We did a lot of fishing, and when you fish you talk about women. That's what fishing is for. And the best kind of marriage is one where you're convinced she's smarter than you are, and she's convinced that you're smarter than she is. Keep that in mind when you're out looking."  
  
Chandler thought of Roxanne, said nothing.  
  
"So tell me, Chandler: You come all the way from California, get all the way to the hospital, and you still aren't sure you want to see your dad?"  
  
Chandler's gut tensed. "Just because he's dying, I'm supposed to?" he snapped.  
  
Paul shook his head. "Relax," he said. "Everyone dies, Chandler. In your line of work you know that. Hell, you could walk out of this restaurant and an anvil could fall on you, or someone could smack your head with a big mallet. Life is a terminal disease; you make the best of it while you have it."  
  
"And that makes it all all right, everything he did to me?"  
  
"No." Paul finished half his beer. "Look, son. I saw your dad, all those years. I saw the way he talked to you and Sid when you were boys. It was wrong and he was a damn fool for doing it, and there was a time or two I told him so. But you know he wasn't the sort to listen to other people. If he'd listened to his doctor ten years ago he probably wouldn't be up in that ward right now with a dozen tubes running in and out of him. I'm going to miss him and I'm not going to apologize to you for that, because he was my friend, and he was a good friend, too. And he loves you and Sid. Maybe it's a screwed up kind of love, but it's there. He was proud of you a lot, but he couldn't say it. I just wish ...."  
  
The man's voice trailed off and he finished his beer in a series of quick swallows.  
  
"You wish what?" asked Chandler.  
  
"I wish he could have told you instead of me."  
  
Chandler watched the older man for a long moment.  
  
"Do you think he could ... now?"  
  
Paul shrugged. "I don't know. Does it really matter?" 


	5. Five

FIVE  
* * *  
  
Air. In and out, flowing, shared. We breathe the air breathed by our ancestors, by Jesus and Moses and Muhammad and Buddha and Confucius and Quetzalcoatl. We have shared it with every animal, with every plant, with whales and elephants and termites and dinosaurs and trilobites. It is the bond among us, universal, wedded to life itself.  
  
Chandler, riding the elevator up to the fourth floor of the south wing, breathed this air. And down the hall, Sid appearing with a greeting and a hug, the greeting expressed with vibrations in that same air, and Mom moving through it, to him, holding him, holding him close, as he stepped into the room where his father would soon end his own common bond with air.  
  
Dad looked up from where he lay, saw him. His voice was soft, hoarse.  
  
"Get out."  
  
Mom looked at Dad, at Chandler, at Sid. And she opened her lips to speak, but Chandler raised a finger to them and just touched them, silencing her. Then he spoke.  
  
"Sid, could you take Mom outside, maybe get her something to eat?"  
  
Sid nodded. "Sure."  
  
"No," hissed the voice from the bed.  
  
But Sid did not obey this voice, and he took Mom out the door, his arm over her shoulders.  
  
Chandler turned to face the bed.  
  
"Get out," his father growled.  
  
Chandler didn't answer right away. Instead he just stood, looking down at the emaciated figure before him. There was a smell in the room, that of antiseptic and urine in battle, and the quiet sounds of machines, and the tubes and needles and bags of solution. But at the center of this was the man, or the thing that had once been a man.  
  
Wasn't he bigger? Chandler thought. Isn't your father supposed to be bigger than you are?  
  
His answer came then.  
  
"I can't do that, Dad."  
  
"You little bastard," Dad said, and his hand moved for the box that would page the nurse.  
  
Chandler beat him to it, moved it out of reach.  
  
"No," he said. "No nurses, no orderlies. Just you and me."  
  
His father looked up at him with venom in his eyes.  
  
"You here to gloat? Is that it? You just here to see me die? Go to hell, boy."  
  
Chandler ignored the barbs, pulled up a chair.  
  
"You know," he said, "I think this is the first time in my life that you've ever had to listen to me. It's the first time you couldn't walk away."  
  
"And you think I'll really listen now? You're even lower than Sid. He at least got rehab for his habit. Well, all right, boy. You want to save my soul or do some other preacher crap? Go ahead and waste your time."  
  
Chandler shook his head sadly, looking down at the dying man.  
  
"You think I care about your goddamn soul, Dad?"  
  
His father looked at him, his eyes suddenly wide. Chandler spoke again.  
  
"I couldn't care less, actually. You think I'm here to waste my time trying to make you a decent father? You aren't. You never were. Being a good father means loving your kids more than you love yourself, and you never could do that."  
  
"I gave you everything ...." the man began.  
  
"You gave me life and then you tried to take it away. Well, Dad, I got it back, you know? Almost all of it. And I'm going to take the rest of it back today."  
  
Dad glared, his eyes like a cornered animal now.  
  
"But before I do," Chandler said, "I thought you might like to know some things."  
  
"Go to hell," the old man said now, but his voice had weakened.  
  
Chandler chuckled. It was a natural thing, a sudden moment of humor in the room that reeked of death. Then he spoke, his voice clear.  
  
"First, you need to know that I've met a woman. Her name is Roxanne, and yeah, she's crazy just like you are, but I think I love her, Dad. I think I might just marry her, and I might just have some kids with her. And I'm going to love those kids. No matter who they are or what they do, I'm going to love them. And when it's me lying there instead of you, the last thing I'm ever going to think is how much I love them."  
  
His father's expression did not change, but the old man was silent now.  
  
"Second, I want you to know that you aren't the only asshole in the world. I work with a guy now who has spent the last several months trying to run me out of town because he's so damn miserable about his own pathetic life. But you taught me something, Dad, that I don't think I quite realized until now. It's not my problem. Maybe Grandpa treated you like hell. Maybe he took your life away, and you hated him the way I hated you. Maybe the only way you could ever face the world was by beating down every inch of it that didn't do what you told it to. I don't know, and surprisingly, I don't actually care. Because that's your problem, Dad, not mine."  
  
It was very quiet now, in the death room. Chandler felt the heat in his face, heard the roaring of the blood in his veins, the pounding in his head, and as he spoke again it almost seemed like it was someone else with his voice. But it was him.  
  
"Third," he said. "Listen now. Part of me will always hate you. You know that, I'm sure. Neither of us can make this a happy ending. But there is more, and before you die you are going to hear it from me, and you can do with it what you like. You are my father and more than I have ever hated you I have loved you. So this is my gift to you, Dad, right now. I give you your freedom. I release you, unconditionally. You are forgiven."  
  
#  
  
Chandler sat with his father for a long time. And in that time his mother and brother returned, stepping quietly into the darkened room, where they each found a chair and sat around the bed and the machines and the tubes and the bags of liquid, dripping into and out of the small body that lay at their center. And in time there were more words spoken, and then none, and this final silence was broken only by a hushed weeping accompanied by the sounds of three people as they held each other close.  
  
THE END 


End file.
